News - page 1172

You know nothin’, Jon Snow. Especially how much more full of shifting alliances and intrigue The Wars of the Roses was than your epic television series is able to show. Game of Thrones superfans may already know that 15th-century England inspired much of the structure of George R. R. Martin’s overarching book series, but having it all laid out — lovely animations and visuals to support the historical information — is our first exposure to that fact.

The short animated video, written by Alex Gendler and animated by Brett Underhill, even illustrates how Game of Thrones matches directly to historical facts with some fun Pop-Up Video-style flourishes. You’ll love it.

Samsung may be the official sponsor of the NBA, but the Apple Watch is stealing the show.

It’s not a bird. It’s not a plane. It’s not a man. It’s Supergirl.

Seeing Kara Zor-El finally embrace her amazing Kryptonian powers in this trailer for the upcoming CBS television series Supergirl is an eye-welling moment of pure awesomeness for men and women alike who appreciate the Super myths from DC Comics.

Watching her bumble her way through cheesy, flirty moments as the gopher for media conglomerate owner Cat Grant (played by Calista Flockhart) and giggling through her scenes with beefcake James Olson, however, is a cheesiness that rivals some of the worst of Smallville, so color us warily excited. Check out the trailer and make up your own mind.

Michael Fassbender is a lot of things: actor, producer, Magneto … but one thing he isn’t is on the cutting edge of technology.

The man playing Steve Jobs in the upcoming biopic from director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) confessed in a recent interview that he is a little behind the times, phone-wise.

In a strongly worded blog post Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission derided legislative attempts to prevent consumers from buying cars directly from manufacturers. While this certainly applies to Tesla Motors’ plans to cut out the middleman on auto sales, the government position would cover any company that wishes to sell cars directly to consumers — like, say, Apple.

Can you imagine a day when we can roll into an Apple retail store, flash an Apple Watch and purchase an iCar with Apple Pay?

Drawing an entire new movie by hand is a long, hard, tedious process, but the animators at Disney have a hidden trick up their sleeves: they recycle footage from older animated films into new ones.

In a new video showing how Disney’s team of animators remixed old animations for newer films, the team at Movie Munchies have mashed up some of Disney’s most classic movies. Did you know Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast have the exact same dance scenes? Or that animators drew over scenes from Snow White  to create footage for Robin Hood, all with the same characters and movements.

Watch the video below to have your childhood ruined:

Apple and electric car battery maker A123 Systems have nearly reached a settlement, after A123 filed a federal lawsuit accusing Apple of poaching its top engineers and scientists to build its own battery division.

Court filings from A123 this week revealed the company asked a federal judge to grant it more time to finalize the settlement now that the two sides have “reached an agreement, signed a term sheet, and are in the process of drafting a final settlement agreement.”

An old saying states that those who can, do; those who can’t, teach — and to this we should maybe add that those teachers who can’t afford the latest Apple products on their salary, steal.

That’s according to a new report stating that a former Caldwell School District teacher in Idaho has pleaded guilty to grand theft charges, after buying (and then failing to hand over) a plethora of Apple gadgets — including two iPod touches, three iPad 2s, a 27-inch iMac, and three iPad minis.

That’s an A for effort, but a D- for execution.

The iPhone is probably the best, most portable gaming device around. Even so, sometimes nostalgia kicks in and you miss your old Gameboy.

The Arduboy is a new, credit card-size console that is just as portable as an iPhone, if not more so. And it can play all the old 8-bit games your iPhone can’t.

BitTorrent’s not just a way to torrent anymore.

Released a couple years ago, BitTorrent Sync proved itself to be a great way to keep your files synced between machines without trusting a service like Dropbox with your data.

And now? BitTorrent Bleep, a serverless chat app, is here to show you you can do without Snapchat or iMessage.

It’s easy to think that Steve Jobs’ biggest contribution to movies was his work at Pixar. In fact, according to no less an authority than Walt Disney and Pixar chief creative officer John Lasseter, Jobs’ biggest lasting influence on cinema could turn out to be none other than the invention of the iPhone.

Speaking at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday, Lasseter said he can easily see a day when the big award-winning movies we watch are produced by filmmakers using only their iPhones and GoPro cameras.

It’s no secret that Michael Fassbender — the actor probably best-known for playing Magneto in X-Men: First Class and Days of Future Past — wasn’t writer Aaron Sorkin’s first choice for the role of Steve Jobs in the upcoming biopic.

But in a new interview, Fassbender says the screenwriter’s early lack of faith in him isn’t something he’s too bothered by, and puts it down to a difference of opinion.

An illegal shipment of gadgets worth almost $800,000, including 500 Apple products, has been seized by Argentine authorities.

The products were on their way to Argentina from the U.S., with the aim of avoiding the import restrictions the country puts on smartphones, tablets, and similar items. Inspectors discovered around 260 iPhones, 60 MacBooks, numerous iPads, and more as part of the raid.

Forget about your run-of-the-mill selfie stick, the future of mobile photography could very well be a new easy-to-use, self-flying camera drone — which users launch into the air like a frisbee and which will then follow them around capturing gorgeous HD video as it does so.

Called the Lily Camera, the rugged and waterproof camera drone boasts a 12MP 1080p camera, is small and light enough to fit in a regular backpack, and functions by way of both GPS and the latest computer vision algorithms.

Check out a video demonstration below:

A woman claims her employer wrongfully fired and retaliated against her for deleting a location-tracking app from her company-issued iPhone, and she’s taking her case to court.

Myrna Arias, formerly of money-transfer company Intermex, took issue with how the bosses were using productivity software Xora, which includes GPS tracking to monitor and optimize business travel. She claims that her higher-ups were using the data to keep tabs on her and coworkers even during off hours and that they terminated her shortly after she removed the offending app.

A new report from environmental organization Greenpeace has given Apple top marks for its policies and movement toward renewable energy.

The 72-page document by senior policy analyst Gary Cook and media officer David Pomerantz serves as an evaluation of current corporate activities, a summary of the state of renewable tech and progress, and a roadmap for how to institute less wasteful programs moving forward.

Apple, which is currently building an environmentally friendly second campus in Cupertino was one of three “Green Internet Innovators” shown on the graphic below, which groups companies from least to most environmentally friendly.

The New York Times recently updated its NYT Now app for the iPhone to version 2.0. It was already an excellent app for staying on top of the day’s news, and now it’s the best.

When the rocket you are about to ride has 3.9 million pounds of thrust under the seat, it’s comforting to have an exit strategy should something go wrong.

The private company SpaceX recently had a successful test of a launch abort system as it moves closer to having manned flights on its manifest.

Astronauts inside a Dragon spacecraft can be propelled a third of a mile away from the rocket in five seconds in the event of an emergency. SpaceX already has had seven successful unmanned cargo missions to the International Space Station and hopes to start carrying astronauts into space by 2017.

What can he say? Kermit is attracted to pigs.

In the one-camera mockumentary style made popular by both versions of The Office, The Muppets are poised to take over ABC this year as they star in their first TV series since their original show back in the mid-1970s.

Take a look at this hilarious, witty trailer for the upcoming show, complete with an absent-minded Miss Piggy and a world-weary yet optimistic Kermit the Frog along with a cast of familiar and new characters.

The trailer pokes fun at the new format of the show along with the Muppets themselves–it’s worth a watch.

Apple Watch is hands down the most beautiful smart watch you can buy, but it doesn’t have a gorgeous round face like the original Apple Watches did. Jony Ive never even considered using a round design because “a circle doesn’t make any sense” for a list-based interface, but the crazy tech pranksters at Peripatetic Pandas are ready to show him how wrong he was.

Using a metal grinder to round out the Apple Watch’s corners, the guys who also solved the iPhone 6’s protruding lens problem have also devised an ingenious way to get a custom round Apple Watch. Sure, their method will void your warranty, but it’s pretty amazing that the watch still works after the beating it receives.

Watch the gory video below:

We all know how exciting a GoPro camera can make our lives look. Mount one to the end of a surfboard, on the handlebars of a mountain bike or to the helmet of a wingsuit diver and the viewer can get a similar stomach-churning thrill.

But what if extreme sports are not on the day’s agenda? Can GoPro make loading the dishwasher or drinking bottled water exciting?

The filmmakers for YouTube channel Burger Fiction set out to challenge our point of view by mounting a GoPro in 21 random places. And behold, there’s an extreme side to such random events as a woman reaching into her purse or a child reaching into a toy box.

Tim Cook’s visiting Beijing at the moment and, when he’s not posting from popular micro-blogging network Weibo, he’s meeting with some pretty high-powered people.

Among them is Chinese vice premier Liu Yandong, who Cook met with on Tuesday to discuss how Apple can do more to promote scientific and educational cooperation between China and the United States.

Three of Steve Jobs’ old business cards — each representing a different phase of his career — have sold at auction for a whopping $10,050.

Spanning the years 1984 to 1990, the cards name Jobs as president of NeXT and chairman of the board at Apple and Pixar, the three companies Jobs was deeply involved with during his career.

So who bought them? Read on to find out.

Mobile giant Verizon has announced that it will acquire the former media kingpin AOL in an all-cash deal worth $4.4 billion.

Although AOL is virtually an afterthought these days, Verizon has said that it will use the deal to help push its online video content, which it has made efforts to become a leader in.

Notably, the deal also makes Verizon the owner of The Huffington Post, Techcrunch, Engadget and others.

Some customers who have ordered Apple’s gorgeous new 12-inch Retina MacBook are in for an unpleasant surprise. After prizing the pristine white lid off the device’s box, they’re discovering that their new notebook is already damaged.

The complaint was noted by Apple accessory maker tizi, whose newly arrived MacBook came with two large dents on its underside. And the company thinks it’s discovered the cause.